Gone
by hollywar
Summary: "He would reap what he needed to, who he needed to, in her vengeance. He was back." In which Daryl returns to Grady, finding what he had been looking for since it was taken away.


**Author's Note: I was unable to update 'Real' this weekend, but I give you this instead. A little oneshot that has been playing in the depths of my crazed mind these past few days.**

 **Gone**

Daryl stood very still.

When he had stared at Glenn for suggesting this – for suggesting something so absurdly _horrid_ , he had cringed despite the years of his own horror he had endured in this lifetime. He had barked out a string of disbelief, yelled that they were all mad and losing their minds, could suddenly feel the pull of air as his lungs deflated.

They had looked at him with knowing eyes, a few of them even had it in them to look shameful.

They wanted to go back _there_.

They wanted to backtrack and ask them for _help._

Because when one Greene sister gets pregnant, it suddenly becomes okay to forget about the other one – the less known sister. The one that's no longer around, but plays hard on his conscious, day and night, visions and nightmares. It suddenly becomes okay to forget that they lost their fucking sunshine where they are asking him to go.

Because they need a doctor.

Of course, they didn't ask him directly.

No, they went about it in a way that he knew all too well. The way that things used to work with Merle. Through their leader, through someone who they knew that he wouldn't be able to shove or punch or kick or ask if he had lost his fucking mind. No, because they knew he respected their leader too much for that.

They went about their business in an undetected way; until it was right in his face and he had nowhere to run.

Nowhere to run until he was standing in front of a very familiar entrance gate.

He'd made it clear they were not to follow in after him, no further than the outer lying tree line in case things went sour – that he was to do this mission alone; it was his only condition. His only condition for his agreement on this, because they knew he needed to be the one to do it. They knew that the people they were seeking would reason with him opposed to anyone else.

Because he had leverage.

They, here where the world's axis had shifted, had taken something away from him that could never be replaced, and he knew that everyone had heard what he had uttered to them as he shut the car door with a loud, silence ringing bang. He had threatened them that he would be back, and that he would reap from what had just happened.

That he would reap what he needed to, who he needed to, in her vengeance. One for one, ignoring that he had already taken one. But she amounted to more than one, and they knew it just as well as he did. And at the time it had seemed like a desperate cry of hurt, mourning.

But now he was back.

The trek was an easy one, one that was etched in his brain from the first time, from the first time of excited anticipation that she was here, and that he was going to get her out.

Easy in the sense that he knew where he was going.

It was unguarded like it had been the first time, when Rick Grimes has slipped in through the door to take back what was rightfully theirs – _who_ was rightfully their family if they wanted to start putting ownership on human beings. Not this place, she had never belonged here.

She was too strong.

Too strong for them and even him.

The car was still where it had been when he had closed the door in a panic to escape the dead hands and teeth.

He stopped and stared as soon as he was passed the gate entrance, every fiber of his being gravitating towards the hunk of metal, where he knew she would be. Where he knew she would be in a heap of herself, where he had haphazardly tried to lay her in a peaceful resting position.

He knew someday this moment would happen, but he hadn't expected it to be so soon. He hadn't expected to still be able to recognize her, even if she would be undoubtedly, in the dark reality they now lived in, decayed.

He didn't need to prepare himself for the sight of her, for he had experienced her in much worse states in his own head, than she really could be, he reasoned. He had already had visions of her as the dead, shuffling towards him whispering out _you failed_ before she devoured him shred by shred.

So when he started walking towards the car he didn't stop, couldn't stop.

He needed to see her with his own eyes, he needed to recover what was left of her and lay what he could to rest – with thousands of wildflowers surrounding an open field. He needed to give her something that she deserved, in which he understood would never be probable.

He could find every wildflower in this hell turned world, and it would never be enough.

Not for her.

Breathing; coming to an abrupt halt.

Empty.

The car was empty; she was gone.

 _Gone._

His chest heaved and vision swirled. He felt the cold prickle of rage run up and down his spine until his muscles shook with involuntary shutters.

His body numb and his crossbow wielded defiantly, he turned towards the front entrance of Grady Memorial Hospital. He had made damn sure that the door was shut tight, was sure to look at her white, unmoving face before he had to run; run like the coward he really was.

And now she was gone.

His feet started moving, mind not registering on anything other than the blood he was looking for.

…

He avoided that hallway, the one where he knew it had happened. Not because he was scared – he wasn't afraid of nothing. But because he knew he had to be on his game right now, knew that seeing that car empty was enough to already jeopardize his sanity as it was.

And suddenly, as he rounded the corner, the mission was different of that he had set out to do. He didn't care that they, his family, needed a doctor because the Asian kid forgot protection. He didn't think about how Maggie could end up like Lori, no, not right at this very second.

This mission had suddenly become a mission to find her.

In whatever state she might be in, he needed to find her.

He'd deal with the doctor secondly, who ironically was the first to walk into his path.

The recognition was immediate, Daryl knew. The people here at Grady were no strangers to having his lethal arrows targeted at their heads, were no strangers of the fact that they had taken something from him, and that dumb cop bitch wasn't enough to make up for it.

The chart the doctor was holding fell to the shining floor hallway with a loud clatter, but the arrow pointed at the doctors head certainly did not falter.

"Where is she," he grunted, and he was almost amazed that the man standing in front of him knew exactly who he was talking about because his eyes got wide a saucers, mouth hanging open in shock.

Time ticked by, and the doctor only stared.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

The commotion brought along other hospital staff, along with a few uniformed police officers. He didn't recognize them, but he sure could tell they recognized him. They didn't even have the mental capacity to raise their weapons against his. Didn't clue in that they overruled him enormously.

No, what he could see on their faces, _all_ of their faces, was fear.

…

Dr. Edwards, turns out his name was, beckoned him to follow.

Only when the crowd dispersed at the doctor's orders, did he follow. Followed him down the hallway, keeping tabs on the movement around him. Machines buzzing and whirring, taking tabs on the generator that never seemed to run out of gas.

They _were_ a hospital, he reasoned, and were bound to have a large supply of everything. But they were bound to run out eventually, this was what he could tell, year two of the world ending. He hoped that day came sooner rather than later, so the outside world could take care of his job for him.

So they could feel what it felt like to have their hearts ripped out of their chest, too. Only he hoped it literally – hoped the walkers around here get to have a fucking Christmas dinner feast.

The doctor disappeared into a regular room, one of which he had seen many times in his lifetime. Daryl ended up in one of these rooms himself a time or two, back when he was just a kid and his teachers could see the bloodstains through his shirt. Had ended up visiting Merle in one of these rooms on occasion when his older brother had a particularly wild evening.

But this one, oh boy this one was different.

On the outside of the door, written in neat blue marker, was her name.

 _Her_ name.

Beth fucking Greene.

…

The crossbow made an even louder noise upon impact with the floor than the clipboard had.

There, sitting swaddled in a heap of crisp hospital sheets was little Beth Greene, skin pale and eyes wide open and blue.

So blue.

So blue that he almost missed the confusion lying within them, almost missed the withdrawn and scared look at the mess he knew he was, walker gunk and human blood alike. Weapons secured in every available pocket, her knife hanging from his hip.

The doctor started explaining things, started using long and complicated medical terms that he didn't understand, would never understand because his blood was that of a Dixon. Nothing special and certainly not intelligent.

No, but what he did make out, was that she was here.

But not really _here_.

…

The people here at Grady must have fucking hit their heads while his family was making their way in the opposite direction, because he was seated in a chair with Beth sitting in her bed beside him, when the doctor placed a tall bottle of water beside him.

He was thirsty, they were always thirsty – but he didn't drink what was offered.

He watched her, watching him with slight curiosity now that he was closer to her. He took it all in, every inch of the face that he had never thought he'd see again – at least not in the alive state she was in. He had definitely not pictured her face alive as of late, his mind too harsh and unforgiving even to his own thoughts.

The doctor stood stoic in the corner of the room, watching but not interfering. Even with his crossbow on the floor beside her bed, there was no movement to end what they had started in the first place.

In this moment, Daryl Dixon didn't care if he lived or died.

She was _alive._

And she didn't remember him.

…

Watching her squirm, he could tell something was up. And in the heat of the moment with no other thoughts than she needed his help, he threw the blankets off her small form, ignoring the grunts of protest from her.

Only to come face to face with her wrist bound to the metal of the hospital bed. Her wrists raw and angry, he suddenly felt his anger boil back to the forefront.

Quick, his forgotten crossbow once again aimed at his target and practically growling in the doctor's direction.

Of all people in the world, of all the people he had run into from time to time out here in this new world, Beth Greene was the last person who should live a life in solitary confinement. The last person in the entire fucking world, that should be hand cuffed to her own hospital bed that _they_ put her in.

And the doctor lobbed over the keys to the restraints without say, without any word to him at all.

…

She was confused as soon as the cuffs came off, and it broke whatever left he had in him to break.

He was a broken man, just as she was a broken woman.

Watched her closely, the doctor behind him all but forgotten about, his back turned, defensiveness. He watched her as she looked down at her free hands, rolled her wrists, he could see her confused look even before she diverted her eyes up to his.

His heart jumped, maybe she would remember. Maybe he could bring her back to her family, maybe he could help her come back. Find herself again.

"I'd stand back," Edwards whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

Daryl whipped his head around, narrowed his eyes at the doctor. Was he seriously suggesting that he stand back, stand away from her? When he had just gotten her back? They were all fucking crazy, and he needed to get her out of here.

But no longer had he turned his head back towards her, did he notice that her eyes had turned. Had turned black. Had turned a shade he had never witnessed before, not even when she had watched her Daddy die right in front of her helpless eyes.

No, what he saw changed his perspective on Beth Greene's state.

Her eyes were dead.

Gone was the light that used to reside there, the same light that she had passed onto him as they burned down that old moonshine shack and his oppressive past with it.

 _Gone_.

She looked right into his eyes with her dead ones, no expression at all, before she started to claw her own eyes out.

 **Sorry that was so weird and sad and choppy. Please let me know what you think!**


End file.
